Daily Archives: January 8, 2010

I was out riding around this afternoon helping my dad with something when I heard Chris Mortenson on the radio discussing the job opening in Seattle and the perception that Pete Carroll is the leading candidate for the hire.

That move, in turn, would open up one of the plum coaching jobs in college football.

Being the kind of person I am, I immediately started thinking about potential candidates for the Southern Cal position – not in terms of what might be best for USC, but what would be the most fun to blog about.

Here are a few stories that update some things I touched on earlier in the week:

Utah AG fights for fairness. He wants that BCS thing “to stop immediately”. But here’s the telling quote from the story:

“And if those millions of dollars aren’t going to those universities, guess who’s picking up the tab? We are.”

In other words, if the programs in the WAC can’t generate enough fan interest to cover their athletic expenses, it’s up to the SEC and the Big Ten to make them whole. Hey, I’ve got a suggestion – if you’re so worried about sticking taxpayers with the bill, why not just shut down unprofitable athletic programs?

“That’s something that I’m not aware of,’’ Myers said Thursday afternoon. “I know he’s a good young coach and a good young prospective coach, but at this point we haven’t made any plans to contact him.’’

Myers reiterated that position hours later and said he had not sought permission from Alabama to speak with the 34-year-old Smart, who won the Broyles Award this year as the nation’s top assistant coach.

While total attendance for the first 33 of the season’s 34 bowl games was down just 1% in a struggling national economy, the FedEx Orange Bowl matchup of Iowa and Georgia Tech on Tuesday sold 66,131 tickets, down 7,471 from the 2009 game and 9,443 fewer than the bowl’s previous five-year average.

Maybe Yellow Jacket fans are at the forefront of that long-promised BCS boycott.

Marcy Girton has not seen the final agenda for next week’s meeting of USC’s athletics department management team, but she is certain the topic of guns and athletes will be discussed.

A day after news broke that Gamecocks football player and team captain Moe Brown had been arrested last summer on a gun charge that was later dropped, Girton said USC officials would study the gun issue after several recent incidents involving college and pro athletes.

Also, Johnson’s decided to try his luck by dropping Dave Wommack. You can bet that no matter whomever Tech hires as a replacement, we’ll be assured of hearing at the Jacket message boards that he’s demonstrably better than Richt’s hire.

The last two spots were the tough calls for me. When the dust settled from the postseason, it seemed fairly clear that I had overrated the top of the Big East and the ACC earlier this year and had somewhat underrated the top of the Big Ten. That made for a rugby scrum of teams to consider for those slots.

Believe me, I wasn’t looking to leave Georgia Tech in my top twelve. But what school has a better resume at this point? The Jackets beat Virginia Tech head to head, have fewer losses than LSU and Nebraska (which played a much weaker schedule) and played a tougher schedule than Pitt (which had to stretch to beat a middle of the pack ACC team, by the way).

I wasn’t particularly thrilled about leaving Cinci in my top twelve, for that matter, as there were mediocre SEC teams that put up more resistance to Florida than the Bearcats managed. But I chalked some of that up to Kelly’s departure and gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Like many, I suspect that if Ricky Stanzi hadn’t gotten hurt, Iowa would have finished in my top five.

It’s pretty weird compiling a season’s end top twelve list without Southern Cal on it.

First and most obvious: congrats to the Alabama Crimson Tide and Coach Nick Saban. You go 14-0 with your last two wins against the second-ranked teams in the land, you’ve earned the right to be called national champs.

That being said, my respect for Mack Brown’s head coaching skills increased considerably last night. His star quarterback gone for the night, replaced by a talented true freshman who played like a talented true freshman, no running game, a shaky offensive line, half his receiving corps unable to hold onto the ball and a defense that couldn’t stop the run when it needed to in the first half – all of that topped off by a disastrous turnover at the end of the first half that put ‘Bama up by eighteen – it would have been easy for his troops to have completely imploded. Yet, with about three minutes to go, the ‘Horns found themselves in a position to drive for the tie or the lead. That’s one helluva coaching job.

I say this as someone who’s got a serious appreciation for A.J. Green, but if you want to insist that Jordan Shipley was the best wide receiver in college football this season, I’m not going to argue with you.

I don’t know which surprised me more, that Saban called for the fake punt early in the game or that Texas had it defended.

That ricochet off the ‘Bama player was one of the coolest onside kicks I’ve ever seen.

Groundhog Day in the broadcast booth: Once more, Musburger gushes about a quarterback “growing up before our eyes” and Herbie continues in his half-shout that sounds like an 80-year old man in need of a hearing aid. The sad thing is that it was still better than most of what Fox inflicted on us.

Is it really that hard to figure out what pass interference looks like? It didn’t have an ultimate impact on the game, but that stretch where the officials blew call after call after call was brutal.

Julio Jones may not have had that great a night as a receiver, but he was hell on wheels as a blocker.

Any way you want to look at it, four MNCs in a row for one conference is an impressive feat – especially since it was accomplished by three different schools.

I always hate it when the season ends. When did you say spring practice starts?